Maxim Messenger: December 2022

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President's Message

Greetings and welcome to our December 2022 Maxim Messenger, our company newsletter.

I would like to start by saying thank you to all our employees for your commitment and for doing what needs to be done day in and day out to help us serve our valued customers. As a sales organization, it is imperative to respond to the ups and downs of the economy and our industry… and respond we do! Once a month at our New Staff Orientation, I get to share with new Maxim employees that they are joining a great team and your attitude and effort make Maxim a great place to work.

Unfortunately for this year, with demand being high and supply being low, the senior leadership team knew we were going to face many of the similar challenges we experienced last year. We take pride in leading the way and offering integrated solutions to our customers, so it is frustrating to be limited with allocations and continued production delays that impact our ability to “make it happen”. Our valued suppliers are challenged with employee vacancies and supply chain issues, and we know they are doing everything in their power to try and increase production to build more trucks and trailers.

For our sales and financial results, our sales volume was ahead of forecast and up 1% vs our prior year. At the halfway point our financial results are ahead of forecast for the year, and we trust that trend will continue through Q3 & Q4 for the balance of the year.  

We always like to recognize performance and our Top 3 Branches for OVERALL FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE and improvement year-over-year were:                           

As you know, we are always “On the Lookout” for great people and we want to reward employees that are introducing great people to the Maxim team! Once you review the updates in the HR section of this newsletter, I would encourage you to check out the new Career Section on the Maxim website and forward a link to anyone you may think would be a good fit at Maxim.

I am delighted to share that on December 8^th we hosted our annual Pancake Breakfast, after a COVID hiatus, in support of the Christmas Cheer Board. I am proud of the $30,000 that we raised for such a great cause, and I am extremely proud of the Maxim team of employees who volunteered to make this event a success. There are many people required to make this event happen and I would like to thank-you for making a difference and Giving Back to help support people in need. Thank-you!

Wishing all of you and your families a Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

Sincerely,

 

 

 

 

 

 

Troy Hamilton, President

 

Service and Operations

The purpose of this message is to give you all a quick update of how Maxim Service and our Fleet Maintenance Group fared since our last newsletter (in June 2022).

Service Financial Results

Service finished the first half of Fiscal 2022-23 with financial results ahead of the same period last year (up 21.2%)

Top 3 Performing Branches	Top 3 Most Improved Branches
1. Winnipeg Trailers	1. Winnipeg Trailers
2. Regina Trucks	2. Winnipeg Southside
3. Winnipeg Southside	3. Regina Trucks

 

Branch N – PA Trailers - Update

• In our June Newsletter we announced the opening of our second location in Prince Albert, SK, and I am happy to let you all know the success of this operation has exceeded our expectations.
• With management support from Kevin Kowalchuk and Chris Pichette (PA Service & Parts Managers, respectively), and the technical support of Technicians Russel Sinclair, Logan Hoppe, Kade Johnson and Cody Hart, Maxim continues to support our growing list of customers in the region.

New Maxim Branch N in Prince Albert is a branch focused on trailer repairs & maintenance. 

Branch 1 (Winnipeg Trucks) Service – Electric Vehicle Certified

• Maxim now has its first two electric truck in service in the Winnipeg Region, and in support of this initiative, Branch 1 Service has become Electric Vehicle (EV) Certified.
• Along with a significant amount of mandatory tooling, including a set of four post mobile column lifts, Maxim now has its first two fully certified EV technicians.
• Technicians Adam Fredrickson and Ronnie Bennett spent a week each in Woodridge, Illinois learning in detail how these trucks operate as well as diagnostic and repair best practices.
• Maxim looks forward to expanding this certification to all our dealership locations in the future.

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Fleet Maintenance

• While the supply chain challenges referenced in our June 2022 newsletter have improved somewhat, parts availability remained a challenge and did result in more fleet truck downtime than we would normally see.
• Also, Service shops across Maxim’s network have remained busy since June (which included the summer months where we would normally see a slight slowdown in workload).
• However, Maxim’s Fleet Maintenance Manager Gillian Giesbrecht and her Central Fleet Maintenance (CFM) Team worked diligently to ensure our fleet remained on the road supporting our valued customers.

• 

Mobile column lifts at Branch 1

People

Included below is an update related to new employees and changes in key positions since our last newsletter:

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• 

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• Ashton Denysiuk - moved from Br 7 Dismantler to Br 1 Apprentice Technician
• Bryan Condol (Br 9) - moved from Shipper/Receiver to Apprentice Technician
• Piyara Flora (Br E) - promoted to Lead Hand Technician
• Maurice (Mo) Bye – Journeyman Truck Technician transferred from Br 1 to Br U (Tereck)
• Mathew Todman – formally Shop Foreman at Branch 7 was promoted to Body Shop Manager

Heavy Truck Technicians

• Rainer Stork - Calgary
• Reed Gilbert - Calgary
• Joshua Papequash - Brandon
• Armaan Dhindsa - Winnipeg
• Cameron Tucker - Prince Albert
• Majesca Tablan – Winnipeg
• Dilen Lal - Calgary
• James Wilson - Calgary
• Jonathan Frost – Winnipeg
• Aaron Cooke - Thunder Bay
• Andrew Douglas – Montreal

Collision & Recycling Technicians

• RJ Obtial - Body Repair Tech

Trailer Technicians

• Jagdeep Sidhu – Winnipeg
• Albert Cruz - Winnipeg
• Danial Czechowski - Calgary
• Danylo Ruzhynski - Winnipeg

Mechanic Helpers

• Theodore Shwetz - Thunder Bay
• Cody Skawski - Edmonton

Service Writers

• Tamara Cutting - Prince Albert
• Pankaj Sharma - Winnipeg
• Bill Gray - Prince Albert

Yard Persons

• Ron Bott - Winnipeg

Congratulations to all of you and we appreciate you taking on these new challenges within Maxim!

Closing

Maxim continues to be a leader in our industry, and it is only through the dedication and commitment of all of you that this success is possible.  For this, I am deeply thankful.

Finally, I hope each of you get a chance to enjoy some time with friends and family over the upcoming holiday period and I look forward to working with you all in the New Year!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kyle Cuthbert, Senior Vice President of Service & Operations

Parts

For our sales and financial results at the halfway point, Parts finished ahead of last year’s results. We have grown sales and profit three years in a row. The gain on sales is due to the new route optimization program and salesmen metrics that were put in place. We are seeing many new customers buying from us and our current customers are purchasing more product. I believe the Fleet customers are trying to continue operating business as usual, but that has been tougher in the past three years. Today, it is less about price than it is about availability. We continue sourcing parts wherever we can to help our Fleets continue operating their businesses seamlessly.

I would like to welcome two additions to the Parts Management team since our last newsletter:

• Mark Tokle - Brandon
• Jeff Paynter - Calgary

We are adding a night shift in our Main branch warehouse, we have noticed a need to expand the hours to handle the business in front of us. We have been disappointing some of our outlying branches and need to better service all areas of our business, specifically parts that are already sold and need to be delivered to both internal and external customers. The addition of a night shift will allow the evening shift to catch up from the busy days that we have been experiencing over the past year and most importantly give the day shift a clean slate to start their day each morning.

The supply challenges continue and even got worse in the past 6 months. There seems to be no consistency with product availability and pricing, so as we continue through these challenging times, we are thankful for the vast experience of our purchasing team led by Calvin Nimetz. We have Navistar and Great Dane from a dealer perspective but have many other options with direct supply from aftermarket suppliers such as Automann, Irving and most recently picked up a new vendor, ULT (differentials, transmissions and steering gears) which allows us to gain sales in our market. 

We have switched our GPS and Route optimization into the SYNNRG platform. I am very pleased to have an in-house program that will allow our Outside Sales team to optimize their time with our customers and grow their relationships, although we had some trials and tribulations with onboarding our team into that platform, things are getting better, and we are now measuring performance better than we ever have in the past. We are developing a robust process to track not just our customer calls but the value that those calls bring to our overall business.

I would like to thank our entire Parts team for your professionalism, commitment, and dedication to our customer’s day in and day out. We have come through some challenging times, and I look forward to better times that lay ahead.

Great work and congrats to all!!!!

Thank you and I wish you all a great holiday season.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Steve Young, Vice President of Parts

Sales, Lease and Rentals

The Sales, Lease and Rental division’s (SLR) first-half financial results are well ahead of forecast and the prior year.  We have seen another great start to the year with a solid improvement in both gross profit and net profit results.  Our sold-on order boards continue to increase and the demand for used equipment continues to drive solid financial results.  Our sales teams across the country have done a great job selling equipment from a reduced inventory level as production delays and supply chain constraints continue to disrupt our industry.  For the last couple of years, our sales teams have been selling based on product allocations and their efforts to meet the needs of our customers are greatly appreciated.

Our top three branches for SALES, LEASE, RENTAL PERFORMANCE and our top three branches for year over year improvement are:

Top 3 Performing Branches	Top 3 Most Improved Branches
1. Thunder Bay	1. Calgary
2. Regina	2. Edmonton
3. Edmonton	3. Montreal

 

Truck sales: First half results are 11% ahead of forecast and 9% behind last year.  The top three segments leading the way are Severe, Used and Heavy.  Used truck results are currently 40% ahead of forecast and 10% ahead of the prior year.  The continued production delays with new equipment from the previous year are still caused by two main factors:  Shortages of labor in the manufacturing process and shortages in material and parts along with multiple price increases on that raw material.  These factors have created challenges across all our manufacturers both on the truck and trailer side.  These issues with new equipment continue to drive high demand for used equipment and our teams have done a great job in selling it for top dollar. 

Maxim has been a Navistar Certified Electric Vehicle dealer for an entire year now and we saw the arrival of our first two fully electric e-MV demo units this summer.  One demo unit has gone into service with Gardewine Transport and will have a full year of real-world testing and most importantly a solid Manitoba winter of cold testing.  The feedback so far has been positive, and the customer is enjoying the new technology to help accelerate their day-to-day operations. The second demo unit is being used for multiple demos and learn and drives with key customers.  We also saw the first sale of a new e-MV earlier this year to a longtime customer of Maxim and we should see delivery of that unit in 2023. 

Another exciting development is the introduction of the new International S13 Powertrain that includes a completely newly designed and proprietary engine, transmission and after treatment system. The design teams from International and Scania developed this innovative new powertrain – read more about it here. Maxim already has 10 International LT Demos on order with this new powertrain and we’re expected to see them land at our dealerships in the Fall of 2023. Our order of these demos means we qualify for an additional allocation of 30 trucks with the new S13 Powertrain for the 2024 production year.

Trailer sales: The first half results are 34% ahead of forecast and 32% above the prior year.  The trailer division is still feeling the negative effects of the factory labour shortages and supply chain disruptions. The front-line sales team has been restricted to selling an allotted number of trailers this year but has done an extremely great job in supplying our customers with trailers they need at prices that are competitive with the competition. Unfortunately, trailer production will continue to see disruptions in the second half of the year, but we are confident that our sales team will be well prepared to deliver the trailers we do get to our customers in a timely manner.

We have recently added Deloupe Trailers to our current product line. Deloupe is a well-known Canadian trailer manufacturer with applications in logging, low beds, sliding axels, scissor necks, tin sows, crushed car hauling and custom trailers.  We feel adding a manufacturer like Deloupe will give Maxim another advantage in our markets to go after new customers and expand our product offering with existing customers.

Rental:  Results continue to remain strong with gross profit ahead of forecast and well ahead of the prior year.  We continue to manage our fleet closely and have seen the results of a lot of hard work over the past few years in correcting our power fleet mix across all Maxim locations pay off.  With the production delays impacting the arrival of our new equipment, we have had to utilize some older equipment in our Rental Fleet to look after both rental customers and lease customers who are waiting for their new units as well. Fortunately, the rental and utilization rates are strong, and the rental market is still robust for which we trust will continue through Q3 & Q4.

Full-Service Lease: Although the gross profit results are 1% behind forecast, they are ahead of the prior year’s results by 8%.   Despite the delays to get new equipment built and delivered, the financial performance of the fleet has been steady year-over-year.  We trust that the results will steadily increase through the balance of the year as more equipment arrives and gets delivered to our customers. Our Lease reps have done a great job staying connected with our customers while pricing was unavailable so they are ready to maximize orders when production becomes available, and do what they could to meet the needs of our customers.

Maxim Excellence Club

We currently have fourteen sales reps on pace to achieve Maxim Excellence Club status.  To all our front-line sales staff, keep up the great work you have done I wish you nothing but continued success for the second half of the year.

Through the past year we have had our fair share of challenges, and everyone has put in the work to contribute to strong first half results. I am proud of the Sales, Lease and Rental team and I look forward to continued success for the second half of the year.

I wish you and your families a safe and happy holiday season and all the best in the new year.

Take care,

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ryan Sapach, Vice President of Sales/Lease/Rentals

Marketing

Our online presence continues to be a major focus for us that has only accelerated since the start of Covid in 2019. While we feature our truck, trailer and parts inventory on our www.maximinc.com website, we also export that inventory to many other sites on a daily basis to get maximum exposure as illustrated below.

Staying with the online theme, we continue to grow our YouTube presence by creating new videos on a regular basis. In the first six month of this fiscal year, the Maxim YouTube channel got over 65,000 views and over 1,700 watch time hours. The TOP 5 most popular videos in that time period were:

We regularly post news stories on our homepage. If you haven’t already seen the numerous Maxim News Stories posted to our website over the past six months, I encourage you to check out our News Page to catch up.

Merry Christmas,

 

 

 

 

 

 

Harry Dornn, Vice President of Marketing

Lightning Round - Technician Edition

With nearly 500 employees spread across 17 branches from Vancouver to Montreal, it's hard to know everyone at Maxim. For each issue we feature two employees answering our fun Lightning Round questions so you can get to know Maxim employees from other branches. Be ready for when your turn comes for the Lightning Round.

IT Systems

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alan Sealey, Chief Information Officer

 

Human Resources

HR Team

We are here to help you with a plethora of topics such as: Recruitment, Employee Relations, Employment Legislation, Performance Management, Policy Development, Disability Management, Training & Development and Compensation.

• Lisa Parent – Director, People & Culture
• Breanne Caufield – HR Advisor (Employee Relations/Performance Management focus)
• Bryce Dooley – Talent Acquisition & Social Marketing Specialist
• Brandi Sims – HR Coordinator (Recruitment focus)

Recruitment

I am excited to share that the number of employees added to the Maxim team has increased year-over-year and we have seen a positive trend over the last 5 months. We are always looking to hire great people and Maxim is committed to the process of finding the best talent and skill set for the available position. We currently offer a Technician Referral Program and if someone you refer is hired and stays with Maxim at least six months, YOU will receive a FREE iPad and $1,000.  We have had 7 Technicians referred so far this year and we trust that will continue for the balance of the year.

COMING SOON: We are looking to launch an initiative that will expand our current referral program to include All Maxim job vacancies! Stay tuned for more details to follow in the New Year!

A list of all open vacancies is emailed to Maxim employees every second Friday for your quick review. If you or someone you know are interested in a current open position, please see the full details at www.maximinc.com/jobs

2022 Long Term Service Awards

60 employees were recognized with their years of service.  (See attached list).

Recent Retirements

• Michelle Kott, Payroll & Benefits Administrator – 11 years
• Sheila Chalecky, Service Administrator, Prince Albert – 17 years
• Ingvar Jacobson, Parts Sales Professional, Winnipeg – 20.5 years
• Art Lepp, Truck Sales Assistant, Winnipeg – 35 years
• Scott Kilpatrick – 17.5 years (on Dec 22)

A sad note

We announce the recent passing of Randy Becker, Parts Person in Calgary with just under a year of service.

Outstanding Service Award

Have you noticed excellent internal or external customer service from a fellow employee?  Did they go the extra mile and you’d like to recognize and thank them?  Forward your monthly nomination to maximhr@dlhgroup.ca. All nominees receive a $25 gift card and one will receive a $100 gift card through random draw. 

For more details and to see a list recent winners, please visit : https://synnrg1.maximinc.com/synnrg_cms_maxim/index.php/help-center/hr/outstanding-service-award

You will need to be on the Maxim network to view this link

Employee Assistance Plan (EAP)

An Employee Assistance Plan is a confidential, short-term, 24/7 counselling service that supports you and your family’s well-being.  Maxim’s EAP service is provided by Lifeworks.  Masters-trained professionals offer free advice and guidance on a variety of topics such as work-life stress, finances, relationships, retirement, and health concerns issues. 

Happy holidays and stay warm,

Lisa Parent, Director, People & Culture

Health & Safety

Our Commitment to Safety During the Holiday Season

Maxim Truck and Trailer is dedicated to the protection and maintenance of all employees’ health and safety, including their physical, psychological, and social well-being. Protecting employees from workplace injury or occupational disease is our main objective. Our Health and Safety Program includes prevention of injury and illness strategies and a safe return to work program that will enable Maxim Truck and Trailer to meet or exceed all applicable legislation and any other requirements.

The management team at Maxim Truck and Trailer is committed to the continuous improvement of our occupational health and safety management program and that our efforts align with the hierarchy of hazard control methods by eliminating and controlling hazards or exposures, while reducing risks to our people or business.

Safety Alerts

In 2022, we have encouraged all employees to report incidents regardless of the severity. This gives us the opportunity to improve and prevent similar incidents in the future.  Safety Alerts include root cause(s) and corrective actions that are shared and adopted across all Maxim locations. We believe that sharing this information will improve our overall safety performance.

Bis Trainer – Forms Module

We have expanded our relationship with Bis Trainer and have introduced a digital solution to streamline our safety responsibilities giving us more time to dedicate to our customers. All Maxim employees can now access the Safe Tapp 2.0 app and find all safety related forms including equipment & workplace inspections, safe work procedures & practices etc. We are excited to enter 2023 and take our safety program to the next level.

Safety Tips – Holiday Season

Winter Driving

Winter driving can be hazardous. Factors such as rain, snow, ice, sleet, fog, and limited daylight hours present real challenges to motorists, whether they drive for work or leisure. In fact, when it comes to winter, the number of casualty crashes in which someone is killed or injured due to driving too fast for road conditions almost doubles from October to December. In addition, more work-related vehicle crashes causing time-loss injuries occur between October and February.

Our people are our prize possession, and we need to make sure that we do everything in our power to ensure the health, safety and wellbeing of our employees and families. Please take the time to check weather conditions, leave earlier so you are not rushing and most importantly slow down.

Christmas Decorations

Christmas decorations create many potential dangers that are too easily overlooked, keep your family safe this year and be mindful of your decorations. Homes are lost due to Christmas tree fires every year; keep your tree away from heat sources (vents, space heaters, fireplaces, candles) and don’t let it dry out! If you opt for an artificial tree, check to see if it is fire retardant as some are still very flammable.

Always make sure if you’re putting up lights that there is someone there to support your ladder to prevent a fall. Inspect your lights while putting them up; any frayed wires, broken sockets and loose connections should be fixed or replaced. Ensure that all lights inside and outside are off before you go to sleep. Leaving lights on overnight increases the risk of short circuiting and electrical fire.

Drinking and Driving

During the holidays people typically drink more than usual, this leads to more impaired driving. Be aware of your own safety if you are drinking and have a plan for how to get home if you cannot safely drive. It’s always better to be safe than sorry, if you question your ability to drive, don’t risk it.

When you are out driving, remain aware that other drivers may be impaired. It is important to be extra cautious during holiday seasons, pay attention to the vehicles around you. Keep you and your loved ones safe this holiday season and drive cautiously.

Happy holidays and stay safe this holiday season,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Jeff West, Health and Safety Manager